In a complex and dangerous world, the allure of the simple is addictive. But the habits of typecasting can offer us little wisdom. We must educate ourselves to understand these habits, and to demand public discussion that is based on knowledge, understanding, and a belief in the possibility of egalitarian community. Without this, democracy cannot exist.
Join Typecasting authors, Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, in an ongoing discussion of the influence of stereotypes, past and present, and strategies for combating divisive ways of seeing.

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21 November 2009

In the 1960s, the ability to dominate and overcome nature still infused the ethos of American capitalism. In this LIFE magazine advertisement for Humble Oil Corporation (which eventually merged with Standard Oil to create the global petroleum Leviathan, Exxon-Mobil) melting glaciers was presented as an index of success, something to brag about. Today, the glaciers are melting rapidly, but oil industry propaganda takes no credit for the impending catastrophe. Greenwashing is the order of the day.

Click on the image to make it readable. We invite readers to download and distribute this remnant of the once buoyant ideology that helped lead the world towards its current predicament.

29 May 2009

The boundaries of touch* have long been patrolled by the moral watchdogs of society.

Hugging salt and pepper shakers, sold by street vendor on Broadway in NYC

In the United States, as Anglo-American ideals of physical reserve were pressed to the margins by a new population of free blacks after the Civil War, all things African, particularly those involving movements of the body and expressions of joy, were subjected to a rule of white terror that persisted into the 1950s.

The waves of immigrants between 1880 and 1920 had a similar effect,with Italians, Jews, Eastern European Catholics entering America and bringing with them patterns of kissing, hugging pinching that also threatened the firm handshake reserve of the old stock, and doomed the era of the bow and the curtsy.

Child rearing experts advised against the physical touching of children by parents, suggesting that such excesses of tenderness might lead to the effeminization of society, the demise of 'manliness' in particular. Immigrants and others were drilled in rules of etiquette intended to keep public signs of physical affection to a minimum.

Of course the migrations continued, and the fortresses of repression continued to weaken. Signs of physical affection, particularly those that remained unsanctioned, began to pop up in the demimondaine of everyday life.

Now, according to the New York Times (28 May 2009), there is an epidemic of hugging running through American high schools. And with it, a taxonomy of different hugs, each with its own particular moves and composition. Some is girl on girl. Some is boy on boy. Some is girl on boy, some move from a couple to a few, all in one collective embrace. The crossing of ancient tribal taboos, of course, also runs through a growing encyclopedia of contemporary hugging.

Responding to this, some educational arbiters of propriety are working to establish bans on this outbreak of hugging, which, they are convinced, will only lead to the hard stuff. They want to ban hugs on school grounds. (Some, according to unconfirmed rumors, wish to install a new curriculum in the civics of bodily armoring, an attempt to staunch the affectionate energies that have led to this groundswell of uninhibited embrace among adolescents.)

They want to ban hugs even though--to recall a Leonard Cohen lyric--"love's the only engine of survival."

Banning hugs is like banning Brazil.

Banning hugs is like banning much of Continental Europe, although some would argue that a ban has long been in place throughout much of the British Isles.

Banning hugs is like banning Ireland. Or Xhosa. Or Galitziana.

Banning hugs is like banning warmth, like banning extended family and kinship. Like banning kindred spirit. Like banning Mother Earth, and the waters from which we come.

Banning hugs is like banning shared happiness, or grief.

It is banning the smells that draw us closer.

Banning hugs is banning love, just when we need it most.

_____

* The phrase, "Boundaries of Touch" is lifted from Jean O'Malley Halley's splendid book of the same name, published by the University of Illinois (2007, 2009).

02 May 2009

It began as a campaign for
guaranteed universal health care, arguing that the general health of
humanity cannot be guaranteed by corporate ownership of health
resources, or by an individual's ability pay for products and services
relating to personal health and the health of society.

Now,
one of our readers has submitted the idea that there are many essential
social needs and resources that should not be subjected to the iron
cage of free market claptrap.

This button design, just
submitted to Stereotype and Society, suggests that the viral campaign
must be opened to a wide range of issues and concerns that should no
longer be ghettoized as "private matters."

01 May 2009

We don't know whether you've heard about this yet, but we are encouraging artists, designers, media visionaries, citizens of the world, and frustrated couch potatoes to contribute to a mounting "Viral Campaign for Universal Healthcare."

Choose the surface. medium and occasion for your intervention, but please intervene.

This is an attempt to bring the discussion of universal healthcare in line with the all-embracing network of life of which we are all a part, and emancipate it from the individualistic, free market claptrap that has held the issue hostage in the United States since the late 1940s.

Built around the theme "Healthcare: Not a Private Matter," it's an attempt to remove the issue of universal healthcare from the ideological stereotypes that have crippled it for more fifty years (socialist, tax and spend, we can't afford it, unfair competition to private insurers, Harry and Louise) and remind people that while we may experience illness personally, we are all part of a vast human organism.

As long as some are at risk, all are at risk. The nature of illness and prevention needs to be reframed by the unavoidable biological connectedness of an extended ecosystem, and this is an attempt in that direction.

Some of the early work is posted below, but the idea is to move the ball way beyond that. Post it where ever you think it will turn the buzz into a roar. Spread the word. Let no social network go untouched. For submissions to Stereotype & Society, send file to archiebishop@mac.com.But don't stop here. Let no stone go unturned. Pass it on and on until the medical-industrial complex and its legislative toadies tremble, and the profit motive is removed from the preservation of the greater good.